Healthy Minds, Healthy Souls: Getting Stuck with Grudges

Have you ever felt like someone wronged you? I mean really wronged you.

And have you ever reacted angrily when you felt you just didn’t deserve it; or that you were treated in a way that felt completely unjust?

When these moments happen, we are just filled with righteous indignation. Our mind attaches itself to the wrong, and as if are beading a necklace with a knot in it, we get stuck. Our thoughts get stuck, our body gets stuck, our heart gets stuck. We just don’t want to let it go.

I get it, but, have you ever truly asked yourself, why? “Why am I holding on to this?”

Are we going to teach the other person a lesson? Will they better understand their wrong, if we punish them by holding on to anger? Will they decide to be a better person? In the end, does that ever really work?

I once heard someone say they worked so hard to win the fight, that they lost the relationship.

Today, I challenge you to use your anger for healing rather than hurting, use your anger for deepening understanding rather than defeating understanding. Let your anger be used for it’s intended purpose.

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Presbytera Roxanne Louh is a licensed clinical psychologist who works and resides in Jacksonville, Florida with her husband Rev. Dr. Nicholas Louh, the priest at St. John the Divine Greek Orthodox Church. Her practice is an outpatient practice treating adults, adolescents and their families along a variety of concerns, including: depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorders and eating disorders. She places great value on the role of faith in terms of providing a framework for the installation of hope, strength and support.